ISIL agrees to free Syrian cement workers as Kerry vows to turn up heat on group

On his first visit to Iraq since 2014, the US secretary of state met with prime minister Haider Al Abadi and foreign minister Ibrahim Al Jaafari to discuss the fight against the extremists.

US secretary of state John Kerry speaks during a press conference at the US embassy in Baghdad on April 8, 2016. Jonathan Ernst/AFP

BEIRUT // Syrian mediators reached an agreement on Friday for the release of hundreds of cement workers kidnapped by ISIL, a monitoring group said, but it was unclear exactly how many were freed.

ISIL abducted 300 employees on Monday from Al Badia cement factory outside the town of Dmeir, around 50 kilometres east of Damascus.

Local figures from Dmeir mediated a deal with ISIL on Friday to let the workers go free, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The group said that in effect, some 170 workers would be freed as others had already managed to escape.

The Observatory could not specify how many had actually been released on Friday,

But a military source said he saw dozens of cement workers arrive on Friday evening at a nearby regime-held military airport.

The ISIL-affiliated Amaq News Agency said in an online statement it had released about 300 of the workers, but that it would not free 20 men accused of belonging to a pro-government militia.

The statement said four of the cement workers were executed for being Druze, an offshoot of Islam considered heretical by ISIL.

News of the workers’ release came as UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said the war in Syria had “provided the perfect breeding ground for extremists and terrorists to take root in the society.”

“Now (ISIL) and all the extremists are spreading like a cancer around the world,” he said on the sidelines of a high-level conference in Geneva on preventing violent extremism.

UN envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, meanwhile, said ISIL and other violent extremists are “like Ebola. They are looking for a weak body” to infect.

“Any conflict that we allow to be protracted ... is now being infiltrated by the DNA of (ISIL) or international terrorism,” he added.

But both Mr Ban and Mr de Mistura said that, like disease, the extremist threat can be beaten with the right remedies.

“Ebola has been treated and ... I think (ISIL) and international terrorism can be treated, but with a series of different medicines used simultaneously,” Mr de Mistura said.

In Iraq on Friday, US secretary of state John Kerry vowed to turn up the heat on ISIL as he made an unannounced visit to Baghdad to show support for Iraq’s crisis-hit government.

Mr Kerry, on his first visit to Iraq since 2014, met with senior officials including prime minister Haider Al Abadi and foreign minister Ibrahim Al Jaafari to discuss the fight against the extremist group.

He said the US-led coalition and Baghdad would “turn up the pressure even further” on ISIL, which has suffered a string of territorial losses in recent months in both Iraq and Syria.

Retaking Mosul – the largest Iraqi city under the extremists’ control – remained “at the top of the list in terms of priority”, Mr Kerry added.

The Iraqi army said last month that its troops and allied paramilitaries had begun what was expected to be a long and difficult offensive to retake Iraq’s second city.

On Friday, Iraqi forces backed by US-led coalition air strikes reached the centre of the western town of Hit, dislodging ISIL militants and evacuating thousands of civilians, state television said.

A local commander said the pro-government forces had routed the militants from their stronghold in the town, which had a pre-war population of nearly 100,000, but that fighting was still going on.

“We are still pursuing them. They have abandoned their families and fled,” the commander said in a live broadcast. “Within days, God willing, Iraqis will rejoice at the complete liberation of Anbar province.”

The recapture of Hit, located on the Euphrates River near the Ain Al Asad air base where several hundred US personnel are training Iraqi army troops, would roll back ISIL further west towards the Syrian border.

During his visit, Mr Kerry also pledged US$155 million (Dh569.1m) in new US aid to Iraq to support Iraqis displaced within the country or forced to flee abroad as refugees.

Amid Baghdad’s fight against ISIL, prime minister Al Abadi is seeking to replace his current cabinet with a government of technocrats, a move that has faced opposition from powerful parties and politicians that rely on control of ministries for patronage and funds.

“What we have signalled very clearly today ... is we support prime minister Abadi and his government as it addresses these very complex security, economic and political challenges,” Mr Kerry said.

“We urge everybody to work together. We urge everybody to put the interests of Iraq, writ large, ahead of personal interests or sectarian interests.”

* Agence France-Presse, with additional reporting by Reuters and Associated Press